Dr. Dudley is professor of church and
community at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago. This article appeared
in the Christian CenturyJune
6-13, 1979, p. 635. Copyright by the Christian Century Foundation and used by
permission. Current articles and subscription information can be found at www.christiancentury.org. This material was prepared for
Religion Online by Ted & Winnie Brock.

Objective information on the dynamics of church
membership growth -- and lack thereof -- is crucial, especially in a time of
decline. Leadership myths and factional claims too often become the language of
misunderstanding and the weapons of internal conflict. Well-intentioned
denominational programs for membership recruitment have been based on
fragmentary evidence, parochial success, and the personal experience of the
leadership group. Hard statistical data have been difficult to find.
Comparative information on the patterns of growth or decline in different
denominations or in different communities has been almost nonexistent.

Recently the Hartford Seminary Foundation, with
the support of Lilly Endowment Incorporated, assembled a new base of
information derived from mainline denominational experience since the beginning
of the Eisenhower era. Over the two-year period 1976-78, a score or more of
academic and denominational researchers gathered periodically to share
information on the fluctuations in mainline Protestant denominations and the
social context in which membership changes occur. The resulting research has
been edited by Dean R. Hoge and David A. Roozen, and published by Pilgrim Press
under the title Understanding Church Growth and Decline, 1950-1978. Based
on controlled studies of mainline Protestant denominational bodies, the inquiry
provides the most comprehensive collection of data gathered in the past
half-century.

Unfortunately for those seeking simple answers,
the comprehensive quality of the research frustrates any single resolution of
the complex problems surrounding the declining membership in mainline
denominations. The researchers made no efforts to announce consensus on either
the problem examined or the programs recommended. But in their open dialogue,
they articulated the issues and compared their data on a common ground.
Research cannot determine questions of value and faith, nor can it decide which
approach is “the most Christian.” But the information can help decision-makers
devise the programs which will work best with certain groups and at what cost.

In developing programs for membership
recruitment, for example, numerous styles of evangelism have been attempted,
proclaimed, frustrated and often denounced. If we cluster these programs into
three basic approaches, the recent data can provide insight into the
application of these approaches to mainline church ministries. The first
approach advocates clarity of meaning in membership; the disciplined church
life; distinctive Christian congregations; and the necessity for evangelical
zeal. Dean M. Kelley has put this appeal most forcefully in his watershed book,
Why Conservative Churches Are Growing. A second approach is associated
with the missiological studies of gospel “receptivity” among particular
peoples, as developed by Donald McGavran and associates in the Institute for
American Church Growth. This approach has produced such upbeat books as How
Churches Grow, How to Grow a Church, Ten Steps to Church Growth and Your
Church Can Grow. A third approach reaffirms the historic emphasis of
mainline Protestant denominations on membership appeal through dual
responsibilities of care for individual souls and concern for the welfare of
the whole society. This public as well as personal function of the mainline
churches has often been associated with The Christian Century and the National
Council of Churches.

These three approaches are not necessarily
mutually exclusive, but they are sufficiently distinctive to provide a set of
questions for which the recent studies suggest interesting new insights.

The Marks
of a True Church

Dean Kelley published his powerful but winsome
presentation in 1972,when denominational losses were undeniable and
comprehensive explanations were unavailable. In the past several years, no
approach has received so much attention or contributed so much to an
understanding of the church. Kelley’s charts and statistics compared growing
and declining churches, with a devastating judgment on mainline denominations.
He argued that mainline Protestant churches were declining because they were
too weak to adhere to the marks of a true church. These marks might be
summarized as (1)institutional strictness, (2)religious
distinctiveness, (3) theological conservatism and (4) evangelical zeal. Using
as examples religious groups which were growing, Kelley urged commitment to the
marks of the church -- a move which he said would result in stronger churches.

The clarity of language which makes Dean Kelley
so appealing also makes his approach measurable for testing in congregations
and denominational programs. At many levels, researchers looked for his marks
and measured the correlations between the Kelley thesis and congregations which
were growing or declining. In studies of mainline Protestant congregations, in
which the researchers controlled for socioeconomic factors and demographic
changes, the marks were no more likely to be found in growing congregations than
in declining ones. By contrast, the social contextual factors (socioeconomic
data and demographic changes) determined between 50and 90per
cent of the growth or decline of local church membership. What is happening in
the church is not as important as what is happening around the
church. As a comprehensive solution to the problems of membership growth and
decline, the Kelley thesis is inadequate.

However, Kelley’s approach is significant in two
dimensions: it is highly effective in particular kinds of communities, and it
is very appealing to an identifiable segment of the population.

In older areas of larger cities and in
nongrowing suburban communities, growing congregations exhibited the
characteristics Kelley predicted: higher demands on their members, separateness
from their community, a faith they defined as “conservative,” and a willingness
on the part of members to recruit others for the church. Kelley’s “marks of the
church” seem obvious. But in content, these characteristics were significantly different
from what he had anticipated: (1)growing congregations made more
demands on their members, but they often perceived themselves as extended
families; (2)they were separate from the community, but community
groups were significantly more likely to be using church facilities; (3) they
defined their faith as “conservative,” but they were far more likely than
declining congregations to be active in the community seeking to organize for
people in need; (4) they recruited church members, but typically, membership
recruitment was not well organized or thought to be of the highest priority.
The commitments of such congregations were as deep as Kelley had suggested, but
much broader than he had anticipated.

Dean Kelley’s principles were vividly
exemplified by persons who already felt alienated from society -- economically,
politically, psychologically or spiritually. Persons with such feelings of
deprivation seemed to express their faith in more exacting language, through
more structured and disciplined communities and more in personal piety than
through social causes.

Kelley’s thesis was not universally applicable;
for example, his marks of the church were noticeably absent from growing
congregations in rural areas and medium-sized towns, and from ethnic congregations
and churches in growing suburbs. However, the disciplines of faith
(conservative with a broad social conscience) were apparently a factor in the
growth of congregations in nongrowing communities.

Baptizing a Principle

Research by the Institute for American Church
Growth is primarily concerned with the factors which contribute to gospel
receptivity among particular populations. Faced with the same data which
suggest that the social context will determine the relative limits of church
growth (50to 90per cent), leaders of the church growth movement
have proclaimed that the church is not helpless: we can choose the context in
which growth has the best chance to occur. Churches are encouraged to target
their mission to the kinds of people who can hear them best. Rather than argue
against the contextual analysis of membership growth, the Institute for
American Church Growth has made an ally of the facts.

In Your Church Can Grow, C. Peter Wagner
has succinctly stated the basic principles of church growth. These might be
summarized as follows: (1)commitment -- the church (especially the
pastor) must want to grow; (2)identify our people -- members must look
for others who are similar to themselves in values, culture, heritage and
religious expectation (called the “homogeneous unit”); (3) receptivity -- the
church must look for those persons within the homogeneous unit who are most
receptive and then must be ready to receive them; (4) priority -- the church
must be willing to eliminate unproductive elements from its own programs, and
to abandon unproductive segments of the larger population.

Data on growing congregations in growing
suburban communities provide a prototype which exemplifies the principles
enunciated by Wagner: (1)the congregation and the pastor are committed
to growth; (2)the community has already been prescreened to provide a
homogeneous unit of people who have mutual interests, share the same culture,
socialize freely and feel at home with one another; (3) the resources of the
congregations are often “big enough” to absorb new people easily into various
activities; (4) with a priority being institutional growth, suburban
congregations typically resist ecumenical alliances (labeled “hypercooperation”
in church growth literature). In growing suburbs, Wagner’s principles are
statistically correlated with growing mainline congregations.

Identification of the homogeneous unit is a
distinctive feature of research conducted by the Institute for American Church
Growth. Congregational homogeneity of one sort or another was found to be the
case in mainline Protestant denominational life, almost without exception. Even
those congregations which appear to be racially diversified usually display a
unifying core of ethnic background, middle-class values or theological
viewpoint. Although if Institute for American Church Growth did not invent the
concept of the homogeneous unit, it has been the first to “baptize” the
principle as a basis for more effective propagation of the gospel.

Church growth principles can also be used
identify communities in which membership growth will be difficult if not
impossible. Based on the homogeneous-unit principle, church growth research can
determine which communities are too diversified for effective membership
potential. Such diversity is defined by Peter Wagner as “disease” from the
perspective of homogeneity -- for example “ethnikitus” (cultural diversity) in
changing urban communities, “old age” (loss of young residents) depopulated
rural areas, and “lift” (socioeconomic mobility) in the affluent suburbs. Where
such “pathology” exists, church growth specialists (and social scientists
generally) do not anticipate growth in mainline church membership.

In one regard the principles of the church
growth movement appear to be misleading as applied to mainline Protestant
denominations. Peter Wagner typically begins with the commitment of the pastor
and the congregation to the purposes of church growth (often stated in terms of
the Great Commission, Matthew 28:19-20).This sense of overriding
urgency has encouraged some congregations to sacrifice other tasks for the
singular cause of institutional membership growth. However, in mainline
Protestant groups, there is no significant relationship between membership
commitment and growth, except in new and expanding suburbs. For mainline
churches, membership increases occur without a concentrated, organized effort
per se. Nor is growth primarily dependent on the commitment of the pastor
alone. Growing congregations are characterized by four elements: strong
worship, diversified programs, effective pastor and enthusiastic members.
Although those four elements carry a different content in different communities
and traditions, in general it can be said that growing congregations have a favorable
location, generate a higher level of activity, and feel better about what they
are doing than do congregations not experiencing expansion. In light of this
research, single-minded concentration on membership growth appears
counterproductive.

We might note in passing that the Southern
Baptist Convention has been uniquely blessed with features that are an
expression of both the Kelley thesis and the Wagner principles. From their
church history these Baptists have inherited a separatist, sectarian theological
tradition which makes them comfortable with Kelley’s marks of the church. At
the same time they exist in a social context which provides a stable cultural
base for sharing the gospel as advocated by church growth principles; in the
south, church attendance is significantly higher than in other areas, and
churches draw members from that segment of the population whose citizens have
larger families and tend to remain in the communities of their birth. SBC faith
and structure match the people they so effectively serve.

Increased Pressures

The mainline denominations which have suffered
the greatest membership losses also share a common heritage. The Episcopalians,
Presbyterians, Dutch and German Reformed, Lutherans, Congregationalists and
English-speaking Methodists have all enjoyed prestigious positions in earlier
cultures. For them, mainline theology historically has meant caring both for
individuals and for the culture as a whole. They are the denominations which
have provided the strength for the National Council of Churches. Such
ecumenical councils are an expression of a common concern for what Martin Marty
has called “public Protestantism,” because they include the social order and
public welfare as appropriate dimensions of Christian ministry. These mainline
denominations can be distinguished from more sectarian groups which are
characterized by what Marty has called “private Protestantism,” with its
emphasis on personal religion.

In recent years, declining membership has increased
the pressures within mainline denominations to withdraw from the public arena,
and to limit the activities of the ecumenical councils which make visible the
social witness of the churches. The Kelley thesis appears to stress the
priority of personal piety and doctrinal purity of the church. This form of
theological sectarianism has been used to justify the withdrawal of church
support from the social ministries of public Protestantism. In a similar way,
the homogeneous-unit principle of the church growth movement has emphasized a
cultural sectarianism. This principle has been used to justify increased racial
and economic segregation, as evidenced in denominational priorities for
new-church development in ethnic enclaves and monochromatic suburban communities.
Social involvement and congregational diversity have been identified by church
leaders as major causes of declining church membership, and theological and
cultural sectarianism have been offered as viable alternatives for renewal. In
short, public Protestantism has taken the rap for membership decline.

In the face of this rhetoric, the recent studies
of membership patterns offer four areas of insight into the behavior of
mainline church members. First, “conservatism” in mainline denominations is apparently
different from the “private Protestantism” of sectarian churches. Conservatives
generally emphasize biblical truth, saving experience and personal faith. In
mainline churches they also are concerned to save the traditions and places of
their inheritance. These conservatives care about the people whom they have
left behind in changing cities and declining rural areas -- but mainline
churches have paid the price for such caring. They suffer from the
“pathologies” of urban “ethnikitus,” rural “old age” and too much suburban
“lift.” The growth statistics of mainline denominations would improve if they
would move away from the past and instead place a singular priority on the
future. However, the policy of abandoning congregations simply because they are
“unproductive” has been considered theologically untenable and pastorally
unthinkable. In this case the church leaders are too “conservative.”

Second, “conservatism” in mainline churches also
includes a pastoral concern for the whole community. Growing mainline
congregations are significantly more involved in community activities, and
community groups are significantly more likely to be using church facilities.
Further, the members of growing mainline churches indicate that they derive
more satisfaction from churches which include a strong social ministry. Such
congregations are distinctively Christian, but they are not withdrawn from the
life of the community. Sectarian approaches which place priorities on the
separation of the church, or on church membership growth per se, are not
statistically significant in the growth of main-line churches. For example, the
sectarian patterns which may be effective overseas or with the Jehovah’s
Witnesses are apparently inappropriate when transplanted into the denominational
programs of the United Church of Christ.

Failure to Attract Young People

Third, mainline Protestant churches are not
losing members to the “competitive appeal” of conservative, evangelical or more
rigorous religious groups. There is no membership migration from what Kelley
has called the “weaker” to the “stronger” churches. Episcopalians and
Presbyterians are not becoming Mormons and Seventh-day Adventists. The losses
of mainline churches and the gains of other religious groups are two
distinctively different phenomena which are occurring at the same time. These
shifts involve different segments of the population, and reflect independent
value changes among different groups of people. In a literal sense, the source
of membership decline is not in the number of people who have dropped out of
churches, but in the decreasing number of people who have joined. These
churches have simply failed to attract new, younger members to take the place
of those who have departed by natural attrition. The declining mainline
churches have failed to maintain the family cycle.

Fourth, the youth from the families of mainline
Protestant churches are not abandoning the faith. In fact, the
theological beliefs of the American public seem to have remained relatively
unchanged since the beginning of the Eisenhower era. Neither have young people
shifted their loyalties from those of “old liberals” to those of the “new
evangelicals” (on balance the flow seems slightly in the other direction).
Rather, mainline church membership losses reflect a widespread shift in values
which is especially pronounced among more educated, mobile young adult -- the
children of mainline church families. Included in this values shift is a
massive resistance to organizations, institutions and voluntary associations,
including (but not limited to) the church. Thus, these “lost members” are not
flocking to banners held out by other forms of institutionalized religion. They
are mobile, experimental and experiential -- the free spirits in our society.
They are people who believe without belonging.

Examining Roots

Mainline churches will not “win back” lost
members by imitating the successful programs by which other groups secure the
loyalties of other populations. Our problems are more complex and challenging.
We cannot discover our ministry by mimicking the styles of others; we must look
again at the roots of our confessional commitments.

When we lift our heads high enough to see beyond
the embarrassing statistics of the present situation, we may discover that we
have numerous biblical and historical models for creative Christian minorities
in an essentially secular world, We can admit our minority status without
assuming a sectarian posture. We can discover from current research many of the
factors which contributed to the decline in mainline church membership. We can
learn that church leadership and programs were not the precipitating causes: we
are simply not that important when compared to much larger cultural forces. We
can learn much about the people who would once have joined mainline churches --
where they are, what they believe, and how they can be reached. Finally, we can
give up the myth of a righteous monopoly -- the idea that all religious people
will join churches, and that churches should be interested only in religion. In
short, we can regain our modesty.

Mainline Protestant churches appear to be
uniquely prepared to work with those who believe without belonging. With them
we apparently share many values of the past as well as hopes for the future. We
may not get them “back” into the churches, but we can join with them to do the
Lord’s work on earth. And we may rediscover the Christian church in the
process.